Pratt To Invest $8 Million In Additive Manufacturing Partnership At UConn

Officials from both announced Friday that they have set up one of the nation's most advanced additive manufacturing centers as the latest puzzle piece in the university's Technology Park.

"It's a unique collaboration for the school of engineering," Kazem Kazerounian, interim dean at the UConn School of Engineering, said in a interview. "This center creates a hub for research and development and also education."

Additive manufacturing processes make parts by fusing bits of materials with heat, as opposed to traditional methods like machining or milling that sculpt away at larger blocks of metal. It can also be useful for coating parts with special metals or repairing worn components.

The manufacturing process has gained national attention and, for some, embodies a twinkle of hope for the industry's future. In one bright example last month, Oxford Performance Materials, a South Windsor company, created a skull implant using 3D printing — one type of additive manufacturing.

UConn Provost Mun Choi said at the announcement on Friday that the goal of the center is simple: "to change manufacturing."

Kazerounian and others are excited by the fact that additive manufacturing — including 3D printing — opens doors to make things that were once impossible to create using traditional means. For example, an additive machine can make a part with channels in it, or one that's completely hollow, with just a computer design of the desired object.

"We can take a very fresh look at the design on everything that we use," he said. "We are no longer bounded by how we make those components."

Paul Adams, Pratt's chief operating officer, said that he expects additive manufacturing will change the world. "The capability of the technology is very good."

Pratt, a division of United Technologies Corp., said it spent at least $4.5 million on the center so far, with plans for another $3.5 million over five years. So far, three machines are in the center — one that runs on a high-powered laser and two that run on an electron beam.

One — the electron beam machine melting machine — is the first of its kind in the Northeast, Kazerounian said, while another is the first of its type in North America. These machines, unlike the smaller desktop 3D printers that cost about $1,000, cost in the ballpark of $1.5 million.

The center — in which students, faculty, Pratt employees and other industry players will work — plans to submit research proposals to the National Additive Manufacturing Innovation Institute, said Kazerounian. As such it will support President Barack Obama's Advanced Manufacturing Partnership Initiative.

The idea hit Pratt's Agnes Chau Klucha about a year ago, and she approached UConn after hearing plans for the technology park. By June, the university had an $800,000 plan to renovate the Longley Building for the additive center, according to a university letter to its board of trustees.

"We see that we need to pursue additive and advanced manufacturing in order to keep up globally," said Klucha, an engineering manager at Pratt. "Developing our relationship with UConn is important to develop the next generation of engineers."

The engine maker — like other companies — uses additive methods to make prototype parts when developing a new engine platform. Unlike others, though, the company is in the process of certifying an engine part made fully by additive methods.

"For us to have that kind of confidence in it is truly an achievement," said Pratt's Adams.

The machines at the center are already up and running, Klucha said, and have been for a while. Both Pratt and UConn are staffing the center with technicians and engineers.